Re: GSoC 2011 Student Introduction

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Keith BOWES <zooplah@gmail.com> wrote:
> Je 2011-Mar-09 je 10:03, William Holbrook II skribis:
>> My name is William Holbrook and I'm a sophomore at Morehead State
>> University.
> Welcome to the list and good luck with your application.
Thanks! Been wanting to do GSoC for a while, just never met any of the
requirements (it's my first year in uni).

>> I've seen on your list of GSoC 2011 ideas (and lists for GSoC's
>> previous years) that you're looking for someone to get the Mac port
>> of Abiword up to speed. I have a Mac (with OS X installed) that I
>> use regularly, so I would be good to go there (given that having a
>> Mac is a prerequisite for porting to the Mac platform).
> That would be awesome. AFAIK, the bulk of AbiWord developers are on
> Linux. The last time I heard, the Windows version is cross-compiled
> from a Linux machine.
>
> I remember when I was working on it in GSoC 2009, I didn't have a Mac
> and really royally messed up the Mac builds in my branch. Having
> someone on board to keep the Mac version healthy is exactly what's
> needed.
Good good. I also have Linux and Windows machines, so I'm not limited
to any one OS (although I'm partial to Mac and (moreso) Linux for SSH
goodness). I use a Mac the most though (school work and whatnot), so
it sounds like I can be of great help there.

>> I must admit -- I don't have any development experience, but I'm
>> ready and willing to learn. However, I believe that the devs are
>> better to judge if this project is apt for me to pursue.
> You have to learn somewhere. Do you have basic knowledge of C++ or
> object-oriented programming? C++ is very quirky, but if you're familiar
> with object-oriented theory, it's not hard to understand.
I'm taking an introductory course into C++ right now, although we
won't be going through classes this semester. I picked up python quite
quickly last semester, and I feel I'm picking up C++ pretty quickly
too, but the course is moving too slow.

Would my introductory course be enough?

> Most of the AbiWord code is cross-platform. As a Mac developer, you'd
> be working on the shell and dialogs, making sure they compile, making
> sure they work correctly. It would likely be more debugging than
> anything.
Nothing wrong with that! :) Sounds like a good way to get involved to me!

First time replying to a mailing list, so if I'm not doing it right,
just let me know! Hopefully it's right though.

Thanks!

-- 
William Holbrook